مطالب مرتبط

Issues in Intellectual Property Rights: The role of tourism in safeguarding the integrity of Art as a cultural icon in Iran

Malcolm Cooper PhD LLMKazem Vafadari PhD

AbstractThe heritage and cultural life of a country as expressed in its art is often an undervalued and under-utilised tourism resource. On the other hand tourism has often been criticised as having a very high potential for adverse impacts on local and indigenous cultural values. Iran has significant potential for an international tourism industry based on culture and heritage. However the rich fusion of Persian and Islamic cultures that distinguishes Iran from the rest of the Middle East and Europe is not easily promoted for tourism internationally at present as a result of successive external attempts at forcing Iran’s isolation since 1979. Within the context of these debates, the present paper discusses the increasing pressure on Iran for local control of the use of indigenous cultural icons as art commodified for tourism. The current international legal background to intellectual property rights is referred to, and used as a framework for determining the likely success of attempts to control the use of such indigenous cultural imagery for tourism purposes.